Blown (28 page)
Author’s Note
This book owes its existence to the patient and intelligent handling of my editor at Bantam Dell Books, Kate Miciak, to whom I am more than usually indebted. Thank you, Kate, for your cogent replies to all those e-mails and your unflagging support. Both were essential.
Most authors are the sum of their recent reading, and I am no exception. Four books in particular were my constant aids and inspiration in writing this novel. On the subject of neo-Nazism in America, Daniel Levitas’s
The Terrorist Next Door
is perhaps the most exhaustively researched, persuasive, and troubling volume available. Regarding tradecraft operations and Moscow Rules, I must recommend Milt Bearden and James Risen’s book
The Main Enemy,
which had the power to keep me up reading late when nothing else did. And in the matter of disguise, exfiltration, and the intriguing operations of the Office of Technical Services, Antonio J. Mendez’s memoir of a lifetime running “Q” branch,
The Master of Disguise,
is as entertaining as it is informative. I learned about the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team from Special Agent Christopher Whitcomb’s remarkable memoir of the sniping trade,
Cold Zero
.
My thanks also go out to those members of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Publications Review Board who read this book in manuscript form and cleared it for publication.
Francine Mathews
Golden, Colorado
May 2004
About the Author
F
RANCINE
M
ATHEWS
spent four years as an intelligence analyst at the CIA, where she trained in operations and worked briefly on the investigation into the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. A former journalist, she lives and writes in Colorado, where she is at work on her next thriller,
The Alibi Club
.
By Francine Mathews
THE CUTOUT
THE SECRET AGENT
Mysteries by Francine Mathews
Featuring Merry Folger
DEATH IN A COLD HARD LIGHT
DEATH IN THE OFF-SEASON
DEATH IN ROUGH WATER
DEATH IN A MOOD INDIGO
and
The Jane Austen Mystery Series by Francine Mathews
Writing as Stephanie Barron
JAND AND THE UNPLEASANTNESS AT SCARGRAVE MANOR
JANE AND THE MAN OF THE CLOTH
JANE AND THE WANDERING EYE
JANE AND THE GENIUS OF THE PLACE
JANE AND THE STILLROOM MAID
JANE AND THE PRISONER OF WOOL HOUSE
BLOWN
A Bantam Book / May 2005
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2005 Francine Mathews
Bantam Books is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mathews, Francine.
Blown/Francine Mathews
p. cm.
1. Women spies—Fiction. 2. Married women—Fiction. 3. Neo-Nazis—Fiction. 4. Terrorism—Fiction. 5. Washington (D.C.)—Fiction.
6. Germany—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3563.A8357 B58 2005 2004046208
813′.54—dc22
eISBN: 978-0-553-90149-8
v3.0
